ON DECEMBER 22, 1894, in Paris, Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus was unjustly accused of treason for passing military secrets to the Germans. The Dreyfus Affair—often simply referred to as l’affaire—was “the most celebrated affair of the Belle Époque and the conflict that helped shape the political landscape of modern France,” according to Michael Burns, author of Dreyfus: A Family Affair (HarperCollins, 1991). L’affaire inspired writer Émile Zola to write an open letter addressed to Félix Faure, then president of France, which appeared on the front page of the newspaper L’Aurore on January 13, 1898. It was Georges Clemenceau, a member of the National Assembly and later prime minister, who had some influence at the newspaper and who titled Zola’s letter “J’accuse…!” The accusatory letter was scathing and landed Zola a libel lawsuit, but this was what he’d intended all along as he believed a public trial would force the military authorities to reopen the Dreyfus case, in turn revealing the military cover-up. L’affaire is also a key underlying theme in Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, and through its successive volumes Proust reveals which characters are for or against Dreyfus. Patrick Alexander, in Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time: A Reader’s Guide to The Remembrance of Things Past (Vintage, 2009), notes that the Dreyfus Affair “ripped French society down the middle and created enmities and cultural divisions that were to last decades.” For journalist Theodor Herzl, a Hungarian Jew who was a Paris correspondent for the Austrian newspaper Neue Freie Presse, l’affaire would solidify his belief in a separate homeland for Jews. In 1896 he first explored this idea in a pamphlet entitled Der Judenstaat, and Dreyfus’s tragedy, according to author Michael Burns, “gave his dreams added urgency. If religious tolerance and racial harmony were impossible in France, the home of the Rights of Man, they were, Herzl was now convinced, impossible everywhere.” Herzl, considered the father of modern Zionism, organized the First Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1897, and fifty years later the state of Israel was established.
An excellent book that I think approaches l’affaire in a never-before-examined way is For the Soul of France: Culture Wars in the Age of Dreyfus by Frederick Brown (Knopf, 2010). Brown (also the author of acclaimed biographies of Zola and Flaubert) details how the Dreyfus Affair can be understood only by fully grasping what happened in France in the previous decades: the revolution of 1848, France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the ceding of Alsace-Lorraine, civil war, the Paris Commune, and the rise of nationalism. By the late 1800s, two cultural factions emerged in France: moderates, who espoused a secular state, and militants, who were Catholic and royalist. “Science” and “technological advancement” were pitted against “supernatural intervention,” and these were reflected in two of Paris’s most iconic monuments, the Eiffel Tower and Sacré-Coeur. Brown notes that “these two forces converged as never before during the tumultuous nineties, in the Dreyfus Affair.” The uncertain atmosphere made “cosmopolitan,” “modern,” and “intellectual” dirty words among the very vocal militants. Anti-Semitism and xenophobia reared their ugly heads, and foreign-born Jews in particular were singled out for every kind of vice. (And indeed, the line drawn from this to Vichy, little more than forty years later, is perfectly straight: the Nazis first asked for all foreign-born Jews to be rounded up, and Vichy officials were only too happy to comply.) Brown delves deep into fin de siècle Paris and France, and he brilliantly reveals how the conflicting opinions of the 1800s were not resolved when Dreyfus was acquitted, twelve years after his arrest.
Here is the original article that appeared on the front page of the New York Times on July 22, 1906, detailing the official ceremony that marked his army reinstatement.
Dreyfus Is Decorated Where He Was Degraded
Cross of the Legion of Honor Pinned on His Breast.
Officers Congratulate Him
Ceremony in the Courtyard of the Military School–
An Attack of Heart Weakness Afterward.
Paris, July 21—In the presence of a distinguished military assemblage Major Alfred Dreyfus, wearing the full uniform of his rank, this afternoon received the Cross of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. The ceremony, which took place in the courtyard of the military school, was rendered doubly impressive by being held on the very spot where the buttons and gold lace were stripped off Dreyfus’s uniform and his sword was broken twelve years ago.
The decoration of the Major assumed the aspect of a notable demonstration. His brother officers, who were prominent figures in various stages of the controversy, were among the spectators, and outside the circle of troops stood Mme. Dreyfus and the little son of Dreyfus, Brig. Gen. Picquart, who shared in the court’s acquittal of the famous prisoner, Anatole France of the French Academy, and Alfred Capus, and other literary men, who aided in Zola’s campaign for a revision of the first trial.
Previous to the ceremony Major Dreyfus was presented to Gen. Gillain, commander of the First Division of Cavalry, Gen. Percin, and other prominent officers, who warmly shook hands with him, testifying their satisfaction at his return to the army. The officers then repaired to the courtyard, where trumpeters sounded four calls announcing the ceremony.
The courtyard, from which the general public were excluded, as the ceremony was purely official, was encircled by two batteries of the thirteenth artillery, commanded by Col. Targe, who made the recent discoveries at the war office leading to the rehearing of the case against Dreyfus and his acquittal.
Gen. Gillain, accompanied by a number of army officials, entered the circle with trumpets and drums sounding. Major Dreyfus took up a position by the side of Col. Targe, while Gen. Gillain, stepping into the center of the circle, announced the decoration of Targe as a Commander and Dreyfus as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Dreyfus and Targe, with their sabers drawn, then advanced to the center of the troops, taking a position before Gen. Gillain. The latter first bestowed the decoration on Targe, and then, turning to Dreyfus, the General said:
“In the name of the President of the Republic and in virtue of the powers intrusted to me, Major Dreyfus, I hereby name you a Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honor.”
After pinning the cross on Dreyfus’s breast and felicitating him on his well-earned honor, the General gave the Major the military accolade, the trumpets sounding and the spectators applauding. Dreyfus briefly expressed his acknowledgements.
The troops then defiled before Gen. Gillain, Dreyfus occupying the post of honor on Gen. Gillain’s right, Col. Targe and the other generals being stationed on his left.
When the march past was completed, the trumpets again sounded four calls, announcing the close of the ceremony, which had lasted only about five minutes, and Dreyfus and Targe were immediately the center of an eager crowd of officers and friends. One of the first to reach Dreyfus was his little son, who rushed forward and threw his arms around his father’s neck, sobbing violently.
The officers who had not taken official part in the ceremony also came forward to greet their comrade. As Dreyfus received the well wishes of his relatives and the officers, his face, usually impassive, twitched with emotion, and it was with difficulty that he preserved his soldierly calm.
Turning to Anatole France, Dreyfus said:
“I thank you more than I can say, you who have always struggled for my cause.”
M. France replied:
“We merit no thanks, for what has been done was in the interest of right and justice. We felicitate you all the more since so many others who have struggled for justice have died before it was attained.”
Col. Targe terminated his felicitations by conducting Major Dreyfus to the officers’ quarters, where Mme. Dreyfus was waiting for him. The meeting between the husband and wife was most affectionate, the spectators withdrawing to permit them to be alone. Shortly after this Dreyfus, accompanied by his wife and son, emerged from the military school and entered a carriage. As the Major appeared the crowd in front of the main entrance gave him a hearty ovation, waving handkerchiefs and shouting “Vive Dreyfus!” “Vive la République!” “Vive l’Armée!”
The carriage was then driven swiftly in the direction of Dreyfus’s home. On reaching his residence the Major, who is affected with heart weakness, suffered a violent attack, but thanks to his strong will power the faintness soon passed away and he was able to receive Procurator General Baudouin and Brig. Gen. Picquart, to whom he expressed his sincerest thanks for their exertions on his behalf.
